New buildings on the Youth Campus of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming will aim at becoming the first in a national park to achieve the Living Building Challenge certification. Image: Hennebery Eddy Architects

Sanya Fuwai Center, on the island of Hainan, China, is the subject of a rigorous research study by a design team from GBBN Architects. The project’s site plan is shown below. Photo courtesy of GBBN architects.

The LEED Gold-certified Environmental Science and Chemistry Building at the University of Toronto Scarborough is among 44 sustainable projects included in Diamond Schmitt Architects’ ecoMetrics visual database of energy models. Among its sustainable design features are earth tubes that draw fresh air through cylindrical intake shafts to be warmed or cooled (depending on the season) below ground before entering the HVAC system. Photo: Michael Muraz.

The two-story, 44,000-sf Central Middle School in San Carlos, Calif., is the first school to be constructed using Folia, a K-12 concept that leans on pre-engineering to provide greater design flexibility and customization, as well as quicker delivery (in under a year) and lower overall costs than traditional building methods. The concept is the brainchild of Quattrocchi Kwok Architects, Blach Construction, and structural engineer Gregory P. Luth and Associates. The firms have been refining the system for five years. Image: Tomasz Biernacki, Pechara Studio.

While it’s been building a new 4,500-sf emergency department, Grove Hill (Ala.) Memorial Hospital has continued to offer emergency medical services via MED-1, a mobile hospital unit provided by Carolina HealthCare Systems. The seven-month installation is the longest a MED-1 has been deployed in the field and one of the first where its infrastructure—water, electricity, etc.—has been set up as if the mobile unit were a permanent structure. Photo: Brian Hale courtesy of Robins & Morton.

CallisonRTKL’s Pablo La Roche says that Xylem pods are suitable for tropical cities like Brasilia, Kuala Lumpur, Miami, and Lagos, Nigeria. The pods can be customized with aluminum, wood, and other materials. The first prototype is scheduled to be tested this month. Photo courtesy of CallisonRTKL.

Set to be completed in late 2017, Alamance Community College’s Advanced Applied Technology Center, located in Graham, N.C., is one of the projects that Little’s Center for Building Performance helped to win for the firm. Photo courtesy of Little.